This is my first official blog post! It only took two months of me living here in India to realize that there are a lot of little things about living here that I don't want to forget. I also thought it might be interesting to some of my family and friends to hear about them from my perspective.
Kevin and I are going to keep a list at the bottom of the blog about things in or about India that we like, don't like, or haven't made our minds up about yet. Just interesting tid bits, ya know.
I will update the list every few days, or as we discover more things. Even if this doesn't entertain you guys, it will certainly entertain Kevin and me!
I figure this is a better, and easier way to let everyone know what is up with us here. I found myself writing the same stories over and over in a bunch of different emails to a bunch of different people. I realized that first of all, what a waste of typing and time, second of all, maybe everyone doesn't want to read all that. So here is my solution. I will type it all up here and you can read it at your own discretion. Sometimes I am brilliant, it just may take a while for me to get there.....

We just got back from a trip around the Northwestern, or just Northern, part of India. We went while Kevin was on spring break from IIT. We traveled to Agra, Jaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, Bikaner, and Delhi. When we got back we were exhausted! Lots of traveling on trains and cars and buses(that is a story in itself!) Also a lot of "locals" wanting our "business". That can sure take its toll on your nerves too.
It was really great to see so many beautiful things though! In Agra we saw the Taj Mahal, of course! It really is gorgeous! We arrived there on Friday afternoon, but the Taj is closed on Fridays. Oops, I forgot about reading that in our Lonely Planet book while planning the trip. All the information just kind of ran together after a while.
So we drove around the city in an autorickshaw and our driver took us around "back" of the Taj. It was pretty far away, but as close as we could get and actually see it over the wall, I guess. It is next to a river, so we were on the other side of the river. We wanted to get even closer, so we got out and started walking towards it. Well, the river is pretty much dried up this time of year and all that is left is the black goey stuff that has developed (sadly) from all the junk and trash that has been thrown in there over time. It smelled very...potent, okay I will just say it. It smelled really awful! After a few minutes, we couldn't stand it anymore and turned around to head back. We got a good picture of the Taj from there though, and of my face because of the odor. It is pretty funny, see below.
That night we ate at the restaurant on the roof of our hotel. Hotel Sheela Inn. We were really excited when Kevin ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce and actually got that! No strange Indian spices, just delicious noodles with chunky tomato sauce! It was delicious. I have to write about that because we have found that it is very difficult to actually get non-Indian food that is actually non-Indian. It either is very literal, like the egg rolls (a roti with a fried egg on it, rolled up) or has Indian spices in it, so it tastes Indian, not Chinese or Italian, or American etc. We are a bit obsessed with food here, I guess.
On Saturday we woke up at 5:45 am so we could get to the Taj Mahal in time for sunrise. It was just down the street from our Hotel, so we were going to walk there, but a bicycle rickshaw driver was very persistent about us using his services. After he followed us for a while, we just said okay.
As we aproached the gate and ticket booth, we were in awe. No, not because we saw how beautiful the taj was(you couldn't even see it from there), it was because of all the white people!! There were so many tourists, and we hadn't seen more than 3 non-Indian people for about 2 months! It was weird just because after a while of being in one environment, you get used to it. By the time we got our tickets and shook off the many shop owners who wanted us to come to their marble shop, the line had doubled, and by the time the doors opened it had doubled in size yet again (so 4x as many people as started out). I would guess roughly around 150 tourists.
I think that was the place with the most tourists that we went. The other places that we visited had tourists too (well, in Jaipur at least) but not nearly so many. But man! We got to see one of the 7 wonders of the world. I will post pictures soon, as soon as I figure out how.
We also saw Agra Fort that day too. We got a tour guide for that, and we were really glad that we did, because we learned a lot about the history of Agra and of Akbar, who built the Taj Mahal for his favorite wife. Akbar is really big in all the areas that we traveled, but he died at the fort in Agra.
Our guide had us pay the equivalent of about $10 to see the "secret" palace of Akbars favorite wife (the one he later built the Taj for). He told us that they only let celebrities in there. I don't know if that is true, but we didn't really care. Things are so inexpensive here in India, we didn't mind shelling out a few bucks to see something cool.
It was cool. It was dark, but the ceiling and walls were all covered in tiny rounded mirrors. Our guide lit candles and held them up and moved them around. The whole room sparkled and looked like stars! It was really beautiful. He also showed us where she had a fragrant pool of steaming water that she sat in a hammock over and got a massage. That sounded like a really nice idea. I am still trying to talk Kevin into putting something like that into our house.
We met a really nice couple at our hotel that afternoon while we were at lunch (Cara and Andrew). They were also traveling to Jaipur that night on the same train. So we planned on meeting in Jaipur on Sunday to do some sight seeing together!
I guess I am done for now, I'll write more about our trip later. That was just the first two days!